


Thin Man

by CarryThatWeight



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, My First Fanfic, Poor John, Post-Reichenbach, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:48:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarryThatWeight/pseuds/CarryThatWeight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>/He’s the Thin Man<br/>With a date for me<br/>To arrive at some point<br/>I don’t know when it will be…/</p>
<p>Post-Reichenbach Falls songfic. Song is 'Thin Man' by Suzanne Vega, fiction is my first, it just kinda, happened. Vignettes of John's life after Sherlock's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thin Man

/He is not my friend, but he is with me  
Like a shadow is with a foot that falls  
His hand is on my back when I step from the sidewalk  
Or when I’m walking down these darkened halls.../

 

Nothing ever happens to him. His glory days are well past now he knows, and yet, he waits hoping that one day this nightmare of normality will fade. It is only in his dreams, ironically, that he feels awake. In his dreams, they are both alive and they run together, careening through the dark city streets, the thrill of the hunt and the cold London air tight in their throats. He follows hard on his madmans heels, watching the greatcoat flap in the wind of their passage like bloody huge wings. Those are the good dreams, but they are just as devastating to John Watson as the dreams of shells whistling overhead, of mortars falling, of black wings that cannot fly, of red, red blood and empty grey eyes. The good dreams are worse because just for a moment upon waking, he forgets. Then...he remembers. These are his only danger nights now, and the only danger he faces is being happier asleep than awake, and the taste of crushing despair that lingers in his mouth like last nights whiskey.

John knows he should be past this by now. Though people were initially sympathetic, and his therapist claims that there is no clock or timer to the process of grieving, he knows they are beginning to expect him to move on. It’s been three months, and he is only now remembering to eat and/or shower at least twice a week. He knows Mrs. Hudson is fretting. He just can’t explain to them the sense that his very foundation has been pulled away and now he is merely a thin shell of John Watson stretched over the gaping void of Sherlock’s absence. But it’s only a matter of time, they say, and in a way he supposes they’re right. Just not in the way they think. But that’s ok, no one had understood what Sherlock meant to John, least of all himself. Until it was too late, he supposes. Still, it’s “up by the bootstraps, Watson!” and on he will trudge, one foot in front of the other, placid in his grief and secure in the knowledge that Sherlock was waiting for him, just on the other side of a veil John can’t part.

 

/He’s a Thin Man,   
With a date for me.  
To arrive at some point  
I don’t know when it will be/

 

John’s shift at the surgery feels never ending. The holidays are fast approaching and his day is filled with hysterical housewives, workers attempting to justify begging off their unfairly scheduled shifts and children who have bounced their heads off one too many walls from boredom. (*BORED!!*) John flinches away from the memories. Just one more reason to hate Christmas, he supposes. 

Leaning back in his plain, beige chair in his plain, beige office, he pinches the bridge of his nose before rubbing his eyes. He should give Mary a call, let her know he would be late to her place. They have been taking things slow, but she’s been dropping hints about bringing him round to her parents place for a holiday dinner. John has no real reason to say no, he knows already that he will say yes when she asks. Just as he did when she first asked him out. Mary makes it easy for him, he thinks. Finally, a lovely woman with a good job, a stable, loving family, and no known predispositions towards shooting inanimate objects when bored. She is beautiful and sweet, everything John thought he always wanted. (*Dull.*) He supposes he should marry her. 

She doesn’t even press him for stories or answers about the mad detective from the papers, content to let John volunteer information, or not. Really, she seems to think the whole thing is slightly unseemly, and best left in the past. It has been nearly a year and a half now, ancient history. He tries not to focus on the empty, hollow void inside his chest. It can’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know. With one last sigh, he leans forward in his seat to grab the simple, utilitarian cane from it’s perch at the edge of his desk. He also tries not to focus on how much he despises it. 

 

/I can feel his eyes when I don’t expect him  
In the back seat of a taxi down Vestry Street  
His arm is around my waist and he pulls me down to him  
He whispers things into my ear that sound so sweet…/

 

They had a May wedding. John felt it was all unbearably twee, but who was he to argue? So, springtime and white roses it would be. He had, however, fervently wished that the ordeal had been less crowded, though his own contributions to the guest list had been sparse at best. Harry had come, though she hadn’t been able to stay sober the whole night, which John later pretended he didn’t notice. He was getting better at this selective attention. Lestrade came, but not alone, which surprised John. Though they had offered him a “plus one” he hadn’t thought Greg would have anyone to bring, having confessed to John one night at the pub several months ago, that he and his wife were done for good, the cheating bint. So, when John glanced around the small, crowded church (how could one woman have so many blasted family members?) and lit on Greg with his arm around a young woman, John felt his eyebrows climb up his brow, before he recognised the woman in question. Molly Hooper? Though the ceremony hadn’t even started yet, it looked as though she might be crying, Lestrade’s encircling arm perhaps merely comforting her. Before he could puzzle at her odd reaction (*-see, but you don’t observe-*) the tell-tale music swelled and he turned his attention to the door as his wedding day swept him along.

During the reception, Mrs. Hudson expressed several times how happy she was for them, her eyes bright with champagne and emotion. She looked very smart in her feathered hat, John decided, and was glad she was able to attend. The last two years since... well, since, had been hard for Mrs. Hudson and she did, after all, have a hip. She smiles up at him uncertainly before drawing a breath, her eyes now suspiciously bright and a cold drop of dread curls in John’s gut as he anticipates what is coming.

“He would be so happy to see you happy, John. Though, I can’t picture him behaving at a party like this, can you imagine? He’d be off deducing your father-in-law already-” she broke off, staring at Johns hand, raised in the universal sign for “STOP.” She watched him blink once, twice, then swallow, and she cursed herself for a dotty old bat.

“No, Mrs. Hudson...no. He wouldn’t-he… excuse me.” Without meeting Mrs. Hudson’s stricken gaze, John lowered his hand and moved briskly through the crowd towards the church’s small antechamber they had used as a dressing room. Dimly, through the tunnel of his vision and the buzzing in his ear he heard his new wife say his name as he brushed past where she sat surrounded by her family. He offered her a vaguely reassuring smile and wave, though he didn’t slow. 

Making it through the crowd of onlookers and well-wishers seemed to take an eternity and John’s leg began to shake as he leaned heavier on the blasted cane. Having finally reached the hallway on the far side of the the quaint reception hall, he threw open the antechamber door and staggered inside, just getting it shut behind him before collapsing against it. John’s breath come in shallow gasps and he pawed at the damn tie that felt as though it was choking him. 

With a breathless laugh, John scrubbed his hand over his face, and left it covering his eyes, blotting out the room’s already dim light. Even now, two years later, at his own damn wedding for Christ’s sake, was the very mention of Sherlock really enough to send him into such a spin? He choked off something that felt suspiciously like a sob. Mrs. Hudson was only partly right, he thought to himself, teetering on the edge of hysteria. Sherlock would surely have deduced at least a handful of uncomfortable facts about John’s new father-in-law, Hugh, or about their party guests, or both. However, John couldn’t really bring himself to believe that Sherlock would be happy for him.

 

/He’s the Thin Man  
With a date for me  
To arrive at some point  
I don’t know when it will be…/

 

“I’m sorry Dr. Watson, I’m afraid that that the subdural hematoma may have caused severe damage before we were able to relieve…”

The surgeon’s words fall into a background buzz, waves of white noise that wash over him, occasional phrases stand out sharply unrelenting knowledge from his own medical studies that refuse him the comfort of ignorance. ICP. Sustained oxygen deprivation. Vegetative state. He understands, though the grey fog of shock is still protecting him.

The waves of words are suddenly sinking him and the world slowly dims around the edges. Somehow he is sitting and he lets his head fall into his hands, bent nearly double in the chair. The surgeon- John doesn’t remember his name- makes more apologetic noises, then departs. Mary’s family is here, her mother is sobbing and her younger sister is doing her best to comfort the woman. Her father is pacing the waiting room, but at this moment, John hardly remembers they are here.

No more. Oh god.

His thoughts shattered, intrusive and circular, keep thrusting their horrible images upon his minds eye. The arch of her arm as she waves to him from across the street (the reach of his fingers as he raises his arm in the cold, grey light…as if they could touch from such a great height). The glint of sunlight on her glossy smile (the sheen of tears on his cheeks). 

The fear on her face. The carelessly dropped phone. The split second of warning that this was real, this is really happening.

And then the same endless few seconds, looping again and again.

The car didn’t stop, it didn’t even slow. (His arms wheeled the whole way down, as if he could almost fly). She flew, up onto the windscreen and over. (He fell.)

But the sound, the impact. Bodies breaking was never a sound he wanted to hear again after the war, and now it’s all he can hear.

John’s cane dropped from his nerveless fingers and he ran, although it is dread and deja vu that drag down his steps now, limp forgotten. Stupid, slow. Always too late, anyway.

The blood is so much brighter in her pale hair, but her eyes are closed. Somewhere inside John thinks it is the smallest of mercies, not to see another set of cold and empty eyes, but he knows it’s only a matter of time until she opens her dead eyes in his nightmares.

Suddenly the room is wheeling in his sight, John is being violently shaken. Hugh has grabbed his coat lapels and his screaming in John’s face. Without thought, or conscious action his training kicks in as he sweeps the mans hands aside and un-centers him before delivering a good push, depositing the now hysterical man onto the floor. 

John is vaguely pleased to have not hurt him. However, his ears are still ringing and when he looks down at his hands (still not shaking, how can that be? He should look as shattered as he feels.) he sees they are still stained with her blood. The gorge rises in his throat and he needs to get out now. The Morstans are gathered with their fallen patriarch and they cling to one another, hold fast in the face of griefs torrent. John has no place with them. He moves through the door and out to the streets and no one stops him.

/He is not my friend, but he is with me  
And he promises a peace I never knew  
I cannot give in, no, I must refuse him  
But could I really be the one to resist that kiss so true.../

 

John leaves the hospital and just walks, head down and carefully not thinking. He has no purpose and no direction, but forward soldier, march. His knee holds until he reaches the river. Approaching the bridge however pain lances him and he nearly falls. Exhaustion and shock have bleached the world and John is staggering through it. 

Oh, god.

Not again. 

As John looks towards the bridge, an idea begins to take shape through the sick fog of shock. He can stop it, all of it. After all, it looked so easy when Sherlock-

When he-

You don’t even have to jump, John thinks. 

You only have to fall.

However, just as John is finally nearing the bridge, a black sedan swerves up to the kerb, nearly mounting the sidewalk and blocking a lane of traffic. The door opens and the last person John ever expected to see again steps out.

“Dr. Watson, I do hope I am not interrupting. Please, if you will take a seat?” Mycroft indicates the back seat with a small smile and a wave of the umbrella. John simply stares, uncomprehending. Mycroft’s mouth tightens, the smile sliding off his face, replaced by the trademark Holmes iron resolve.

“My dear John, please step into the car. Unless I miss my mark, you were very nearly about to miss your appointment.”

Still wrapped in fog, John allows himself to be shepherded into the posh sedan, its leather seat folding around him like a whisper. They don’t speak once on the drive.

 

/He’s the Thin Man  
With a date for me  
To arrive at some point  
I don’t know when it will be…/

 

The sedan pulls up to the kerb John remembers so well, even though he has tried never to come here in the last years. He would always meet Mrs. Hudson at a nearby It stops in front of the plain doorway, embellished only by the simple brass numbers and knocker. 

221B Baker St.

The same, after all this time. It’s not fair, John thinks. When our world changes so dramatically it seems that it would be only fair for the world to shift on its axis as well. John takes a deep breath and faces the elder Holmes. 

“So? What am I doing here Mycroft?” 

Mycroft studies him, solemnly. He taps the umbrella against the car floor, once, twice. If John didn’t know better, he would think Mycroft was nervous. The pointed smile was nowhere to be seen. 

“I told you, John. You have an appointment.” Mycroft leans across the seat and opens the door for John, indicates the front door. “It should be open.”

Still wrapped in the feeling of detachment, protected by the fog, John stepped out of the car, not surprised when the door shut behind him. He stood, staring at the doorway, unchanged by time or tragedy. Out of long-forgotten habit, John tipped his head up to look at the street facing windows of 221B, and what he saw nearly undid him. The window shades were backlight, and a familiar silhouette was cast on the curtains.

Tall. Skinny. Curly mop of hair. 

Violin.

Wordless, John Hamish Watson mounts the seventeen steps to 221B to the strains of the Stradivarius.


End file.
